Thursday Movie Picks #462: TMP Television Edition - Book Adaptation

Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share your picks each Thursday. The rules are simple: based on the theme of the week pick three to five titles and tell us why you picked them. For further details and the schedule visit the series main page here.

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This week's Thursday Movie Picks is TMP Television Edition - Book Adaptation

 

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These are the last four series I saw and like that were book adaptations.

Mr. Mercedes (2017 - 2019)

Adapted from the Mr Mercedes trilogy by Stephen King about a killer who drives a Mercedes into a crowd and the detective trying to catch him as well as how that incident affects the community. I really like this. Watched the three seasons back to back. The second season is a little weird with more paranormal things going on. King just released a spinoff novel on a character from the trilogy, Holly, so I kinda hope they make a TV series out of it too and bring back the same actress.

 

The Terror (2018 - 2019)

A horror anthology series. The first season is an adaptation off a historical fiction novel based on a real lost Arctic expedition in 1845-1848. I only saw the first season, which I had wanted to watch for some time because I love period dramas set on a ship (Treasure Island, Black Sails, 1899) but had been kinda scared that it was going to be too scary. Glad I finally saw. It's a mix of survival horror and supernatural horror with great atmosphere, it was excellent.

 

The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart (2023)

Limited series about a young woman whose parents died in a tragic fire related incident when she was a girl. Due to the trauma and her youth, she never fully remembered nor understood what actually happened and her grandmother hides aspects of it and their family history from her until it slowly unravels in the present day. I really enjoyed this slow burning family drama full of secrets. The girl's family owns a flower farm, so the flower designs were very beautiful as well as Australia's natural landscapes.

 

Will Trent (2023 - )

Based off Karen Slaughter's Will Trent series of books about a detective who had a tough childhood solving crimes for Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Of the TV series I've listed today, this is the only one that I have read the book, only the first book of the series, which is a spinoff of another book series, Grant County. Karin Slaughter is one of my favourite crime novelists. I've read her Grant County series and a few of her stand alone novels. The thing about her books, including the Will Trent book, is that they are very dark and the crimes are often violent and disturbing. The books spend a lot of time with the police, the victims and the family or community and how physically, emotionally and psychologically devastating a crime affects them for years and years. A more faithful adaptation of the Will Trent books would be a TV series that is likely aired on HBO or Netflix. However, this TV series, is an ABC series, which means...it is quite a PG series, something like FBI, Law and Order...one crime an episode type of series, very surface level exploration of crime, all solved by the end of an episode. That said, it's an okay series, something you can watch when a random episode of it airs on TV.

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Thursday Movie Picks #461: Non-English Language Movies

Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share your movie picks each Thursday. The rules are simple: based on the theme of the week pick three to five movies and tell us why you picked them. For further details and the schedule visit the series main page here.

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This week's Thursday Movie Picks is Non-English Language Movies

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I’m picking my most recent watches.

The Mad Women’s Ball (2021)

A young woman sees dead people and has kept it a secret from everyone but her brother. However, her secret is eventually found out she is sent to a mental hospital by her father and the movie follows her experience there. I like it; it’s a good drama though of course as expected rather bleak. On the surface, the patients at this hospital are well cared for; they are fed and clean. While some do have some mental conditions the hospital also seems to be a dumping ground for inconvenient women. Women who have done something to displease their family or society, refuse to stay quiet, etc. One can say a stay at a mental hospital is possibly worse than a prison sentence as there is no fixed term. The patients’ length of stay is dependent of the doctors, the longer the stay the more money for the hospital, or how long their families want them out of the way. Then there’s the arrogance of the doctors, their diagnosis are unchallenged and they prescribed various treatments from drugs to other dubious ones like hydrotherapy, electroshock therapy, etc. to the patients where it is seems if a patient was initially committed with a minor condition, she would in the end be worse off in terms of both her physical and mental faculties after being subjected to the numerous ridiculous treatments. Anyway if you like One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest or Stonehearst Asylum I recommend this movie.

 

God’s Crooked Lines (2022)

A woman checks into a psychiatric hospital as a patient to secretly investigate a patient’s death that is suspected to be murder. I had not been interested in this movie initially due to the title as I had the assumption that it was some faith spiritual type of story. Anyway it’s not. It’s a murder mystery set in a mental hospital and it’s quite a fun one to puzzle out too. If you like Shutter Island and Stonehearst Asylum, I think you’ll like this. This is also written and directed by Oriol Paulo, so if you’ve seen and like his other works like Mirage and The Invisible Guest this is definitely something you’d want to check out.

The Chalk Line (2022)

A couple fosters a non verbal girl they found wandering the roads at night who is afraid of stepping out of the chalk line boundary she draws around herself, while the authorities work to find out who she is in order to return her to her family. This is kinda like one of those creepy children movie where you question if the girl is disturbed or traumatised. Overall a decent mystery with an eerie atmosphere. 

 

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